Texas Border Business
In Texas alone, 120,000 jobs and $65 million in state revenue are now at risk because of President Biden’s unilateral job-killing policies. Bexnar County, where San Antonio is located, had already lost 5% of its clean energy jobs due to the pandemic before President Biden threatened the future of thousands more workers with his executive actions.
With so many San Antonians’ futures threatened like never before, their representative in Congress, Tony Gonzalez (TX-23) put into words what they are feeling, “President Biden is actively destroying oil and gas jobs right in front of our eyes… I’m failing to see how he will unify the country when the Administration’s top priority is killing energy jobs.”
We’ve heard President Biden speak a lot about unity since assuming office. Unfortunately, so far his actions have spoken much louder than his words. President Biden’s reckless decisions to place a moratorium on new oil and gas leasing and to abruptly stop development of the Keystone XL Pipeline are so aggressive they have even caused division within his own party.
Fellow Democrats are calling out the Administration for these disastrous policies. Texas Democrat Representatives Vicente Gonzalez (TX-15), Henry Cuellar (TX-28), Lizzie Fletcher (TX-07) and Marc Veasey (TX-33) went so far as to publicly call on the Biden Admin to rescind the executive actions against American energy, stating that banning responsible energy leasing would “eliminate jobs, decrease the country’s gross domestic product, [and] increase crude imports from foreign countries…”
That’s a message we can unite behind, and one Leader McCarthy and House Republicans have been espousing all along.
As Leader McCarthy explained at an energy event today in San Antonio, Texas, “These are good paying jobs, high-paying jobs, and now I’m watching them [being taken away]. It can all be different… even a few Democrats have joined with us. So I’m not quite sure who President Biden is listening to, because he’s not listening to the workers, he’s not listening to the union workers who were building the pipeline.”
It’s hard to imagine that the men and women who have seen their livelihoods upended in the weeks since Biden’s executive orders went into effect feel any “unity” right now. But, then again, how would he know? These decisions were made without ever talking to people in middle America, people like the hardworking San Antonio energy sector workers who just want to keep going to work and providing for themselves and their families.
But Republicans will continue to hear our neighbors out. Earlier today, Leader McCarthy shared what workers affected by Biden’s policies from around the country have been telling him, stating: “People continue to ask me ‘Where are the jobs this president promised?’ Well, the jobs that he promised are not here. And he’s not just eliminating the jobs, he is eliminating the strength of America, too.”
Killing energy jobs and taking away thousands of Americans’ ability to make a living is not a path toward unification. And while it’s a promising sign that a few Democrats have finally joined Republicans in taking a stand for America’s workers, much more needs to be done.
At a time when households are already struggling, the Biden Ban must be overturned at once to give American workers, families, and the economy a fighting chance.
